From 50 paise, she now earns Rs.2,00,000 a day

“I had to make my own living and my own opportunity! But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.”

— Madam C.J. Walker

She can never forget the date: 21 June 1982. The previous night itself, with the help of the local rickshaw pullers, she had pushed the mobile cart to the beach. It was a small move, but it thrilled her. She was going to be a businesswoman the next day. While such carts sold only tea and cigarettes, she had decided to sell cutlets, samosas, fresh juice, coffee and tea. On the first day, she sold only one cup of coffee, and that was for fifty paise! She was disappointed and came home crying. Her mother consoled her saying, “At least you sold one cup of coffee. That’s a good sign. You will do better tomorrow.” Today, of course, the total sales from the 14 outlets averages Rs.2 lakh daily.

It is my privilege to present Ms Patricia Narayan, who runs the Sandeepha chain of eateries across Chennai, and has earned the Best Woman Entrepreneur Award from FICCI in 2013. She lives in a posh duplex apartment in Velachery where you will find a luxury car parked outside the door. Her story is as much about success as it is about disappointment and tragedy. An entrepreneur by accident, Patricia belongs to the ilk of those who bloom in adversity. Her tale may sound like the quintessential rags-to-riches story, but it is also a stark tale of survival.

When she was 17, Patricia Thomas secretly got married to the man she fancied, believing that it was a Mills & Boon story unfolding—it didn’t matter to her that he was 13 years older and a Hindu. She was studying at Queen Mary’s College, Chennai, when she met Narayan, the man she married. His family ran a small restaurant across the road on the Marina, and she would frequently hop over to watch chhola-puris being prepared, only to fall in love with him. In 1977, they quietly got married at the registrar’s office, with his friends fudging papers to show that she was not underage. The idea, at the time, was that she would finish college and only then break the news to her parents. Her father worked in the Posts and Telegraphs Department and her mother in the Telephones. Along with Patricia and her two younger siblings, they formed a typical middle-class family and lived in Santhome.

I used to get up at 5 am, make idlis, and go to the beach. I would be busy till 11pm. My monthly income in those days was around Rs.20,000

“But within three months, he started putting pressure on me to come clean. He would threaten me that if I didn’t tell my parents, he would. I had no choice,” recalls Patricia. When the news spread to relatives, they advised her father that the only way to control the damage was to have the couple socially married. So, Patricia and Narayan took their vows in a Purasaiwalkam church, after which her father told her that he was done with her. She moved in with her husband to a rented house in Anna Nagar, only to realise that life was not a bed of roses. She made discoveries in quick succession—that she was pregnant, that her husband was heavily into alcohol and drugs, and that they had no money to survive.

Pushed to the wall, she returned to her parents’ home, with her husband tagging along. To make herself useful, she started making jams and pickles; her mother would take them to the office and sell them to her colleagues. Her husband would stay sober during the day, but at night would turn abusive and violent if he was not given money to take care of his cravings. Fortunately for Patricia, her father worked night shifts and hardly got to see Narayan’s ugly side.

In 1980, when Patricia’s son was two, she set up a kiosk on the Marina. Recalling her routine during those times, she says, “I used to get up at 5 am, make idlis, and go to the beach. I would be busy till 11 pm. My monthly income in those days was around Rs.20,000. And then, for one whole year, I walked up and down the stairs of the Secretariat, with the child in my arms, to get permission from the PWD,” she recalls. One day, the Slum Clearance Board made her an offer: to run the canteen at their office with a proper kitchen. The chairman met her during her morning walk. It was a huge success. Thereafter, she never looked back.

One day, after a fight with her husband who used to come to trouble her often, she boarded a bus and travelled till the last stop; she got down and saw the National Port Management training school run by the Central Government. On the spur of the moment, she told the security guard that she wanted to meet the administrative officer. She met him and told him that she was a caterer and that she had heard they were looking for one. He said, to her surprise, that they were indeed looking for one as they had problems with the current contractor. Narrating the turning point in her life, Patrica says, “I still believe it was God who took me there. I got an offer. I had to serve three meals a day to about 700 students. They gave us quarters to stay. It was a new life for me. I got into the groove in a day. It was successful from day one, and I took care of the canteen till 1998. My first weekly payment was Rs.80,000. I was elated.”

My only thought was to prove myself and move ahead. There was a fire in me that made me believe that I could be successful without anyone’s help

By now her children had grown up; her income had grown too. What had gotten worse was her husband’s behaviour. He would beat her and stub her with cigarette butts when she didn’t give him money and had also taken to disappearing for months together. In 2002, during one such disappearance, he died.

A few years later, just when she was beginning to put the past behind her, her daughter Pradheepha Sandra, fresh out of college and newly married, died in a car accident along with her husband, his brother and sister-in-law. They were all returning to Chennai from Dindigul. “She had called me from the car just minutes before. She had asked me to prepare biryani and payasam,” says Patricia. She along with her son started Sandeepha, derived from the daughter’s name, in 2006.

Ms Patricia Narayan also operates an ambulance service from Acharapakkam, the spot of her daughter’s accident to Chengalpet. “I shall never forget the sight of my daughter’s corpse which arrived in the boot of a car, as the ambulance had refused to take her.” Will-power is the most important attribute to succeed, claims the entrepreneur. “When she sets her mind to something, she always achieves it,” her son Praveen asserts. Not a complacent entrepreneur, she sets targets for herself. Her next goal? “To operate a cruise liner,” a wish that was triggered off at an event in Trichy. Going by her track record, this should be a cruise as well.

Patricia is now focusing on building a brand image with the able support of her son. It is the story of a determined lady who has travelled a long way from first employing two people, to a staff of almost 200 today. Her earnings have soared from a mere 50 paise to over two lakh per day. When asked to spell out her secret of success she says, “My only thought was to prove myself and move ahead. There was a fire in me that made me believe that I could be successful without anyone’s help. I did not want to be a failure. If you have that fire, nothing in the world can stop you from succeeding. The hallmark of the restaurant is the home-made quality of the food.” When asked for a few words of advice to new entrepreneurs, she says, “Do not ever compromise on quality. Never lose your self-confidence. Believe in yourself and the product you are making. And always stick to what you know. When you employ people, you should know what you ask them to do.”